Since opening in 2019, Handshake in Mexico City has become one of the most lauded destinations on the international bar scene. No.1 on the World’s 50 Best Bars in 2024, along with the top spot on North America’s 50 Best Bars in 2024 and 2025. Now the team behind it, Rodrigo Urraca, Marcos Di Battista and award-winning bartender Eric Van Beek have opened a new venue in Amsterdam, Shakerato.
While it clearly has the DNA of Handshake it’s very much a new and individual offering, as we discovered when we headed over to check it out. (Listen to podcast our review.)
We tried some excellent cocktails, enjoyed elevated bar food and were blown away by the high energy team. We also sat down with Erik in the bar to discover more.
So, Erik, let’s go right back to the beginning of this adventure. You’ve enjoyed enormous success with Handshake in Mexico City. Why and when did you decide you wanted to open a bar in Amsterdam?
Well, it was always a dream for me to open something in my home country, before Handshake even. And back then I didn’t know how to run a bar or work with the numbers. But I always had the idea to open a bar here and at the time I’d thought of calling it Cariño – the name of the cocktail I had won the Bacardi Legacy Global Final with in 2018.
But life took a different turn and I went to Mexico, and eventually opened Handshake. Then I pitched the idea to the guys, my business partners, Rodrigo Urraca and Marcos Di Battista, like “I was thinking, hey, why don’t we open a bar one day in Europe? Maybe Amsterdam, wink, wink!”
Then while I was In Amsterdam visiting my dad and my mum, a couple of years ago, Marcos called me and said there were three properties available. This was the first one I walked into and I called him back and said this is an absolute killer location. The rent wasn’t cheap, but cheap enough to make it work.
And I really wanted to open something here. Often people have success away from home and never go back. I wanted to give something back to my city, my culture, my language, my country and my people.
Thankfully my business partners wanted to do it too. We believed in doing something else, expanding outside of Mexico. And it’s nice to have a different currency flowing in another country because the peso fluctuates. So it’s good to have the dollar or the euro.
Okay, you saw the space in 2023 and opened in December last year. What was happening in those two years?
Well, we got the contract. But you know, we were coming from Mexico City, with a population of 21 million people, to Amsterdam a city that has 900,000. So for every contractor that’s in Amsterdam, you have 21 more in Mexico City. So it’s incredibly expensive here and I couldn’t find the right electricians or the right carpenters. It felt pretty much like a disaster from day one and we nearly pulled the plug twice. But then we got some local partners, I pitched in my own money and things started to move.
But then we were also delayed with the bureaucracy of the Dutch government and it was very slow, which was really frustrating because, you know, because I’m vouching to my business partners, “hey. it’s gonna be good, I’m the Dutch guy!” Then, you know, just backtrack, backtrack, backtrack.
But now we’re open! You experienced it yesterday and I think it has the potential to be unique in Amsterdam, but also, I believe that if you were to exactly copy and paste it in Mexico City, it would be unique there as well.
It’s a beautiful space, tell us what was the idea in your head, the concept you had for the bar?
I once had a dream that my dad and I would come to work around 11.00 in the morning on my bike in the summer. And then he would sit on the terrace with a newspaper and an espresso, you know, like an old school European café. I always wanted the all day concept. That’s how I grew up with that kind of style and I knew if I ever had the opportunity to turn that dream into a real life, I would do it.
So the concept is coffee, tea and pastries, somewhere that maybe the older crowd would like with old school music. Then maybe get a summer glass of wine or Prosecco or a Spritz, maybe an oyster on the terrace. We don’t have the terrace yet but it’s coming soon. Then at night more vibrant, vibey, martinis and elevated drinking for the younger crowd. I think Dante in New York is the best example of this style because they open early and has that Italian, European vibe.
The name Shakerato, where did that come from, because you mentioned earlier that originally you were going to use your winning Bacardi Legacy cocktail name?
We had Handshake, obviously, in Mexico and wanted to do something that linked to that. I think what Shingo Gokan has done is very clever with SG Club and the initials for Sip and Guzzle. I wanted to do something like that. I was thinking what could link to Handshake? We talked about Hand High 5, but that was similar to something that already exists in Tokyo. There was Fist Bump andWave.
Then I went to Camparino in Galleria, in Milan and they have Shakerato on the menu. I didn’t even know that was a cocktail. It’s a shaken espresso, enjoyed in the morning, but it’s also shaken Campari. I thought this is the perfect fit because it was coffee and cocktails, morning and night. It made perfect sense and that’s where Shakerato came from.
Three of our favourites from the Shakerato menu
Olive Oil Gimlet (Don Julio Blanco Tequila – Olive Oil – Apple – Rosemary – Lillet Blanc). Earthy, creamy and delicious.
Shakerato (Shaken up Bitter Italian Aperitif with Yuzu Sake). Bitter, sweet and invigorating.
Bergamot Martini (Tanqueray Dry Gin – Bergamot – Cocchi Americano – Lemon). Punchy, fruity and intriguing.
Now, let’s talk about the look, feel and vibe of the bar. Sitting here now it’s flooded with lots of natural light and it’s very airy
Maybe you could call it an upscale bistro or a cocktail bistro. It’s very comfortable. You have a great view. You can naturally feel the day turning into night. People might ask “is it a cocktail bar?” Not really, I don’t want to be put in that corner. I think it’s more like back in the day, a restaurant bar perhaps.
You’ve touched on the overall offering, tell us a little about the drinks
The House Classics are all Handshake drinks because, first of all, people will come for that as they know that we’re a part of that bar. We also wanted to teach the team the style of flavour building that we do in Mexico. That’s very important because I think a lot of bars miss the mark on having flavour for a drink. Whether you like a drink or not, is an opinion, but it’s about understanding how to build drinks.
Like Three Sheets and Amaro in London. Also Satan’s Whiskers andTayer + Elementary. In these bars the drinks are very delicate and layered, and all delicious, but more in an old school style.
Then with the style of the drinks we wanted to incorporate local European ingredients, particularly Dutch, and because it’s an Italian concept some Mediterranean flavours. For example, we have the Rhubarb & Raspberry and the rhubarb comes from The Netherlands. There’s the Olive Oil Gimlet with olive oil and rosemary from Italy.
The drink style is all flavourful. Clean and easy to understand. There’s a lot of technique in the background, of course, but we don’t tell the guests about this because most of them don’t understand, and we don’t want them to feel silly or stupid. We want them to be comfortable. But if they do ask, of course, we’ll explain it to them. The geeky ones!
It’s early days but how will the menu evolve?
The biggest change will be when we have a day menu as well. The drinks at night are full size, and the drinks during the day will be 60% size, like, a smaller glass, so cheaper.
There will be more amaro, bitters, and spritzes. Super Italian. The other part of it will be purely coffee and tea drinks. Maybe there might be a twist on an Espresso Martini. Right now, there’s an Irish Coffee at night, but it might be available in the morning too. We will always have a coffee drink on the menu , even at night, but it needs to fit the concept.
That’s how the menu will evolve and when we see what sells. The Netherlands palate is very different to Mexico. We have to listen to our guests. For example, I know that you guys love the Butter Mushroom Old Fashioned and Fig martini in Handshake but we have to see if these kind of drinks work for our guests here.
Can we have a word or two about the incredible food offering?
The Netherlands has never really had the big names in restaurants. It’s usually Paris, New York, Tokyo. But I remember back when I was at 27 I met Dorus Floris who is a kind of a dreamer like me. We both had ambitions to be successful. His restaurant, Showw, in Amsterdam was awarded a Michelin star within it’s first year. And I had my success in Mexico.
By the time I was creating Shakerato we had become great friends and I asked if he would be interested in collaborating on a food program of small plates for the bar and maybe extend his name in that way? He was like, “sure!’ He’d seen from the hours I’d put in that I’m very serious.
And as grow we will plan to eventually have a full dinner menu as well.
As we saw last night you have a very strong, talented, high energy team. Tell us about them
There’s Berenger Roth, our general manager, and the way he builds drinks is very interesting because it’s different to me, but our philosophy is the same, like flavour forward. I remember thinking he was very impressive. He had a blueberry Jack Daniel’s drink with a few drops of vinegar. And I was like, who made this? It was incredible.
Then when we started hiring people, everybody applied. Everybody! I talked with them all, but I don’t think they all understood what we were going to be doing here. I’ll do a couple of shifts, but I need them to have their heads fully in the bar. Then an old colleague told me about a young bartender called Lonchi I should check out. He was very laid back but busting out great drinks. Eventually, he applied, and I wanted him involved so I invited him to Mexico. Two days later he was there and stayed for eight weeks. Every day he was on time. He learned to explain the menu in Spanish. By the time he left Handshake, he was bartending with me. The whole team loved him. Now he’s here and on everybody’s ass.
And there’s Noemie. She totally on it too and wants to learn, keeps asking questions. Pretty much the whole team we are training from scratch. No real experience in the market. They want us to be tough. The more energy you give them the more they give it back. They get to know me, to talk to me, to feed off my energy. If I mess up, which I do all the time, they understand it’s a learning process.
So, yeah, they’re doing great now.
Staying with the team, tell us about the welcome they give to every guest who walks into the bar
Often when you walk into a bar, you don’t get recognised. So in Handshake we made a big thing of shouting “welcome!” in Spanish. People loved it and so now we scream “welkom!” in Dutch. Which is actually not a very Dutch thing to do! Then when they leave we say “doei, does” which means “bye, bye”, but Dutch version we use is usually only for very close friends, so it makes it really personal.
It’s been some journey from Amsterdam to Mexico opening Handshake, then back here with Shakerato. What did you learn with Handshake, good and bad, that helped you here?
It’s never going be exactly the way you want. And when you’re not there, it’s not gonna be as you want either. It’s impossible. People see it through their eyes, not yours. I’ve learned to be at peace with that. Otherwise, you’re gonna go crazy!
And opening a bar is easy. Maintaining it is hard. And as I said before, the more energy you put in to the team, not everybody will reciprocate that energy. You cannot be disappointed by that, but 90% of the team will feed off your energy and will grow with you. Like nurturing a child.
You opened just before Christmas, how do you feel it’s going with the local community?
Interest, in the beginning, was very industry only. But then people started walking in and introducing themselves like neighbours and I’m introducing myself to them. And when they realised I was actually Dutch and the team is 90% Dutch we were made really welcome. Now we have people that are coming in every week.
And how are you personally going to divide your time between Mexico and here?
Right now, probably 50/50. But eventually it will be 70% Mexico, 30% here. I would like to spend more time with my mum and my dad here because they’re not young guns anymore.
And I would like to buy a place in Mexico. It sounds maybe a little bit romantic, but eventually, have a wife. All the traveling and adventures you have on the road are fun, but it’s not sustainable.
Last thing. The bar is obviously very new, but what else do you have in the pipeline for the future?
I want to open a coffee shop in Mexico City, like, super tiny. And call it Milkshake.
And me, Marcos and Rodrigo, are doing a lot of consulting too. Another big bar? I don’t want to do that because I wouldn’t be there. If I have more venues and suddenly see something online about one of them that I don’t like, I will go crazy, because I’m a perfectionist.
And if guys like you didn’t like something that I’m doing I’d have a panic attack!
Well, we don’t want to induce panic attacks! Handshake is an absolute favourite of ours and the future looks equally promising for Shakerato
Can’t wait to have you guys back!
